Inorder to reduce the toxic gases emanating from rotten waste that has been lying unattended at the Ghazipur landfill site for years, the East Delhi Municipal Corporation (EDMC) has sought help from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi. Ranbir Singh, Commissioner (EDMC) told City Spidey that a technical research team of IIT Delhi would soon inspect the landfill site and provide its recommendations in terms of averting fire outbreaks.

“We shall also request the IIT team to help us reduce the height of the site through state of the art technology. If they agree, we shall provide them the land for setting up their technical equipments. This land is just adjacent to the site,” Singh said.

At present, the Ghazipur landfill site has about 130 lakh tonnes of waste and its height has crossed 60 meters.

Singh stated that reducing the height of the landfill site is proving to be a challenging feat for EDMC. “We had high hopes from National Highway Authority of India (NHAI). We thought they would lift the landfill waste and use it entirely for construction. However, now their plans have changed. In this scenario we have no other option but to increase the capacity of our existing waste-to-energy plants and set up a few more such plants,” Singh explained.

Singh informed that last year EDMC had signed an agreement with NHAI according to which 65% of total waste dumped at the landfill site would be utilised for the construction of a highway. The remaining 35 % of waste was to be fed to waste-to-energy plants.

Singh elaborated, “An agreement was signed between four parties namely Ministry of Road and Transport, Union Urban Development Ministry, NHAI and EDMC. The plan was to clear the landfill site in the next two years and develop it as a green area using advanced modern technology. The bigger intent was o setup a zero waste management plant.”

As per official information, NHAI has already floated tenders to hire private companies for waste segregation and transporting segregated waste to the road construction site. However, now NHAI is saying that it shall use the waste for constructing only a two kilometer stretch. This would be essentially be a trial and depending on the success and efficacy of the outcome they shall decide their future plans about using landfill waste.